The hardest part of recruitment is not the late nights or the tricky briefs. It is a moment that still gets me, even after 29 years in the game.
Not the late nights. Not the tricky briefs. Not the jobs that shift halfway through the process. Not the client who suddenly changes direction. Not the candidate who accepts another offer just when you thought everything was finally lined up.
It is the phone call you make to someone who has interviewed well, carried themselves brilliantly, given the opportunity everything they had, and now you have to tell them they did not get the role.
That moment still sits heavy.
You would think after nearly three decades in recruitment, across digital marketing, technology, product, data, engineering, creative and leadership roles, you would get used to it. You would think the emotional edge would dull a little. You would think repetition would make it easier.
It does not.
Even after 29 years, nearly three decades in recruitment, I still feel bad telling good candidates they have not been successful. Maybe that empathy is what keeps me in the game. Maybe the day it stops hurting is the day I should probably do something else.
Because recruitment, at its core, is not just about jobs. It is about people. And people put more than their CV into an interview process. They put in hope.
That is the part that stays with you.
A candidate sees a role that might change things. Better money. Better culture. Better leadership. A step up. A fresh start. A chance to get out of a place that has gone stale, toxic, uncertain, or just no longer fits who they are becoming.
They prepare. They research the company. They read the job ad three times. They look up the hiring manager. They practise how to explain their experience. They think about the questions they might be asked. They start picturing themselves there.
And then they interview.
Sometimes they do well.
Sometimes they do very well.
And sometimes, despite all of that, the answer is still no.
That is the brutal part. And it is the hardest part of recruitment that no amount of experience can prepare you for.
“You can’t handle the truth!”
There is a famous line from A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth!”
It is dramatic, obviously. A courtroom explosion. Jack Nicholson at full volume. Not exactly your average recruitment feedback call.
But there is something in that line that applies to this job in a much quieter way.
The truth in recruitment can be hard to handle.
Not because people are weak. Not because candidates cannot take feedback. Most candidates can handle the truth far better than they are often given credit for.
It is hard because the truth is personal.
When someone misses out on a role, you are not just delivering information. You are landing disappointment in someone’s day. You are interrupting the story they had started telling themselves about what might happen next.
And you can feel that.
At least, I can.
The hardest bad news calls are not the ones where the person was clearly wrong for the role. Those are still uncomfortable, but they are usually easier to explain. There was a technical gap. The salary was not aligned. The location did not work. The experience was too light or too senior. The brief moved.
The really hard calls are the ones where the candidate was good.
Strong background. Good communicator. Relevant experience. Prepared. Engaged. Professional. Likeable. Capable.
But the client preferred someone else.
That little sentence can feel so cold.
“The client has decided to move forward with another candidate.”
It is accurate. It is professional. It is often the truth.
But it can sound terribly small compared to the size of what the candidate is feeling.
Because for them, it may not be just “another candidate.” It may feel like another door closing. Another near miss. Another moment where they have to pick themselves up, sound gracious, and keep going.
I have always tried to be careful with that moment.
Not to overdo it. Not to make it about me. Not to turn a disappointing phone call into a therapy session. But also not to treat it like admin.
Because it is not admin.
It is a person.
And if there is one thing recruitment teaches you over time, it is that people remember how you made them feel when things did not go their way.
They may forget the exact feedback. They may forget the title of the role. They may even forget the company one day. But they remember whether you called them. Whether you were straight with them. Whether you gave them time. Whether you sounded like you actually cared.
That matters.
“You can’t play god in this job.”
One of the biggest lessons I learned early in my career came from my first boss at Manpower Recruitment in North Sydney.
I was young, keen, and probably thought caring meant trying to control everything. Like many recruiters early in their career, I wanted the right outcome so badly that I sometimes forgot the outcome was not mine to own.
My boss said something that has stayed with me ever since:
“You can’t play god in this job.”
At the time, I understood it practically. Do not force things. Do not try to control people’s decisions. Do not assume you know better than everyone else.
But over the years, I have realised how wise that advice really was.
As recruiters, we sit in the middle. That is both the privilege and the pressure of the job.
We are not the employer. We are not the candidate. We are not the final decision-maker.
Our role is to understand the brief, know the market, find strong people, assess them properly, represent them honestly, and help both sides make informed decisions.
But the hiring decision belongs to the client.
And it should.
The employer has to live with that decision every day. They have to manage the person, support them, pay them, trust them, and integrate them into the team. They understand things about the business that may not be visible from the outside. Internal dynamics. Leadership style. Commercial pressures. Team chemistry. Timing. Risk. The stage the company is at.
Sometimes the client chooses exactly the person I thought they should choose.
Sometimes they do not.
And that can be frustrating.
There have been plenty of times over the years where I have believed one candidate was the stronger option. Better experience. Better communication. Better alignment. Better long-term upside. Better fit for the actual problem the client was trying to solve.
Then the client chooses someone else.
And yes, privately, I might think, really?
But that is where the lesson comes back.
You cannot play god in this job.
You can advise. You can challenge respectfully. You can say, “I think this candidate deserves another look.” You can point out strengths that may have been missed. You can ask whether a concern is real or just a misunderstanding. You can make the case.
But you cannot make the final call.
That is not your decision to take.
And when a client makes a decision they are comfortable with, you have to respect it.
That does not mean becoming passive. A good recruiter should have a point of view. You are not there to simply pass CVs across and hope for the best. That is not recruitment. That is forwarding attachments with a phone bill.
A proper recruiter should understand nuance. They should know the market. They should know how to read between the lines. They should be brave enough to say to a client, “I think you may be missing something here.”
But there is a line.
You can influence. You cannot own.
That distinction matters.
It matters because candidates are not chess pieces. Clients are not children. Recruitment is not about forcing people into decisions because the recruiter thinks they know best.
It is about helping people make decisions they can live with.
The candidate must decide whether the role is right for them. The client must decide whether the candidate is right for the business. The recruiter must make sure both sides have the best possible information, the clearest possible communication, and the most respectful process possible.
That is the job.
Not control.
Stewardship.
You carry the process for a while. You look after it. You protect the dignity of the people in it. You try to make sure nobody is misunderstood, misrepresented, ignored, rushed, or left hanging.
Then people decide.
And sometimes their decision hurts someone.
That is unavoidable.
But how you handle that hurt is not unavoidable. That is a choice.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
There is another quote I have always liked:
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
— commonly attributed to Gloria Steinem
It is a bit blunt, but I think that is why it works.
In recruitment, the truth can be useful, but it often stings first.
A candidate may need to hear that they did not give enough detail in the interview. Or that they came across too vague. Or too tactical. Or too senior for the role. Or not senior enough. Or that their technical experience was strong, but their communication did not land. Or that the client loved them but chose someone with more direct industry experience.
That feedback can hurt.
But if it is delivered properly, it can also help.
The problem is that too many candidates never get the truth. They get fog.
“Not quite the right fit.”
Every recruiter knows that phrase. Every candidate has probably heard it at some point. And sometimes it is true. Fit matters. But as feedback, it is often far too thin.
What does fit mean?
Culture fit? Technical fit? Personality fit? Leadership fit? Salary fit? Stage-of-business fit? Did they talk too much? Not enough? Were they too corporate? Too casual? Too strategic? Too hands-on? Too polished? Not polished enough?
Candidates deserve better than fog.
Part of our job is to push for feedback that has some shape to it.
Not because we want to argue with the client. Not because every rejection needs a courtroom-level evidence pack. But because if someone has invested their time, energy and hope into a process, they deserve something more useful than a vague sentence and a closed door.
Sometimes the feedback is clear, and you can pass it on with care.
Sometimes it is not.
Sometimes the client cannot quite articulate it. Sometimes there were multiple strong candidates and it came down to instinct. Sometimes the business changed direction. Sometimes the hiring manager had one picture in their head at the start and a different one by the end.
That can be maddening.
For the candidate, obviously.
But also for the recruiter who has to hold the relationship and explain the result.
Because even when the decision is not yours, the communication often is.
That is the emotional weight of being in the middle.
You do not control the final answer, but you are still responsible for how that answer is delivered.
The two phone calls
And I think that is where good recruitment separates itself from average recruitment.
Anyone can call a candidate with good news. That is the fun part. That is the easy part. That is the call we all love making.
“Congratulations, they loved you.”
There is nothing quite like hearing someone’s voice change when they get the job. Relief, joy, disbelief, sometimes even silence because the news means more than they expected.
Those are beautiful moments.
But the real test of a recruiter is how they handle the other call.
The one where the candidate did not get it.
Do you hide behind email? Do you delay because it is awkward? Do you soften it so much that it becomes meaningless? Do you rush them off the phone because you do not want to sit in the discomfort?
Or do you call them, speak to them like an adult, tell them the truth as kindly as you can, and give them the respect of your time?
I have not always got it perfect. No recruiter has.
There have been times I wish I had pushed harder for feedback. Times I wish I had called sooner. Times I wish the process had been cleaner. Times I wish I could have done more.
But I have never wanted to become numb to it.
Because numbness might make the job easier, but I do not think it makes you better at it.
The empathy is the point.
It is what reminds you that the person on the other end of the phone is not just a candidate record, a LinkedIn profile, or a line in the CRM.
They are someone who took a chance.
They showed up.
They tried.
And now they are disappointed.
That deserves care.
A note for clients
For clients, I think this matters too.
A hiring process is not only a way to select talent. It is also a public expression of your company’s character. Candidates learn a lot about a business by how they are treated when they are not chosen.
Anyone can be charming to the person they want to hire.
How you treat the people you reject says just as much. Maybe more.
In digital marketing and technology especially, markets are smaller than they look. People come back around. A candidate today may be a client in five years. A rejected applicant may become a hiring manager. A developer you passed on may later lead a team you desperately want access to. A marketer who missed out may remember whether the process respected them.
Reputation travels quietly.
And candidates talk.
Not always publicly. Not always loudly. But they remember.
That is why a good recruitment process should never be built only around the successful person. It should be built around everyone who gives their time to it.
Of course, commercial reality exists. Businesses are busy. Hiring managers are stretched. Recruiters are juggling multiple roles, multiple candidates, multiple clients, and the usual chaos that comes with human beings making decisions.
But decency does not require a perfect process.
It requires intention.
Call when you can. Give feedback where you have it. Be honest about what you know and what you do not. Do not overpromise. Do not disappear. Do not treat disappointment as an inconvenience.
That is not complicated.
It just takes care.
And care is harder than automation.
You cannot automate empathy
There is so much talk now about AI in recruitment, automation, matching, sourcing tools, candidate journeys, workflows and platforms. Some of it is genuinely useful. Some of it is noise wearing a shiny jacket.
But no technology removes the human responsibility of telling someone the truth with kindness.
You can automate a status update.
You cannot automate empathy.
At least, not the real kind.
The real kind is in the pause before you speak. It is in the way you say, “I am sorry, I know this is disappointing.” It is in the choice to stay on the phone for another few minutes. It is in remembering that the candidate may be trying very hard to sound fine.
Sometimes candidates apologise for being disappointed.
That always gets me.
They will say, “Sorry, I know you’re just the messenger.”
And yes, in one sense, we are the messenger.
But we are not only the messenger.
We are part of the process. We encouraged them to consider the role. We represented the opportunity. We helped them prepare. We told their story to the client. We became part of that little chapter in their career.
So when the answer is no, we should not act like it has nothing to do with us.
It does.
Not because we made the decision.
But because we are responsible for how the decision lands.
That is why, after all these years, I still care about the bad news calls. I still feel them. I still sometimes sit quietly afterwards, especially when I know the candidate was strong.
Still in the game
And yes, recruitment is tough.
It is tough for candidates who keep putting themselves forward, often while carrying more pressure than they let on.
It is tough for clients who have to make decisions with imperfect information and real consequences.
It is tough for recruiters who care, because we sit right in the middle of hope and outcome.
Some days, this job gives you the best feeling in the world. You help someone step into a role that changes their life. You help a company find someone who genuinely moves the business forward. You see the match happen and think, yes, that is why I still love this.
Other days, you make the hard call.
You tell a good person they missed out.
You hear the disappointment.
You wish you could do more.
But you cannot play god in this job.
You can only do your part properly.
Tell the truth. Be kind. Respect the decision. Respect the person. Stay human.
And maybe that is enough.
Maybe after 29 years, that is the bit I still believe in most. Not the perfect placement. Not the perfect process. Not the perfect outcome.
Just the promise that even when the answer is no, people still deserve to be treated like they mattered.
Because they do.
